Do you think this dough would lend itself to an experiment with wild yeast? I was thinking of a wild yeast preferment for ~18 hours or so. If so, what would be your recommendations for the hydration % based on the results of your experiments so far?Thanks in advance,FB

That's an interesting question. Generally speaking, I have discovered that the commercial yeast in just about any dough and for just about any pizza style can be replaced with a natural starter or preferment. I personally have done this with just about every pizza style but the American style (I simply have not gotten around to trying it with this style). However, the dough formulation I posted in the opening post in this thread is for a very high yeast dough that is intended to be made and used the same day. What you are proposing to do is to stretch out the process timewise by at least double--from about eight hours to 18 hours or more. I believe this can be done but it may depend on the condition of your starter/preferment and the amount you plan to use. To give you an example, suppose you decide to use an amount of a natural preferment that represents about 15% of the weight of the formula flour. This is a fairly typical number, and one that I have used many times before. Suppose also that your natural preferment is made up of equal weights of flour and water, the effect of which is to create a poolish (100% hydration) as was done with the dough formulation I posted in the opening post in this thread. Using the preferment dough calculating tool at http://www.pizzamaking.com/preferment_calculator.html, the dough formulation for this set of conditions breaks down as follows:

To create the above table, I used the dough weight of the original formulation and subtracted out the weight of the honey, which is not an ingredient that the preferment dough calculating tool is designed to work with (although it can work with sugar). I also used a hydration of 69%. This was a 1% increase from the original 68%, and was increased to compensate for likely losses of water (through evaporation) in the preferment over an 18-hour or longer period. This was simply a guess on my part, since the amount of actual water loss will depend on the temperature of the preferment during the prefermentation process. I also used a bowl residue compensation factor of 2.5% in the preferment dough calculating tool, to compensate for minor dough losses during preparation of the dough. I have discovered through experience that such dough losses tend to be higher for very wet mixtures of flour and water, as is the case with a poolish, for example.

To get the final dough weight, you would add in the weight of the honey (0.54 oz.) to the dough weight given in the above table. Doing this, the final dough weight comes to 19.92 oz. This should be enough dough to make a single 16" pizza. The honey would be added as part of the final mix, not as part of the natural preferment.

Of course, you can alter the numbers to suit your particular case. For example, your natural preferment may not be made up of equal weights of flour and water and, hence, may have not a hydration (defined here as the weight of the water divided by the weight of the flour in the preferment) of 100%. Also, you may decide that you want to use more or less than 15% of the weight of the formula flour, based on the activity level of your particular preferment and its other characteristics that are unique to your preferment. I have made and seen preferment levels as high as 40-45% of the formula flour. Whatever numbers you decide to use, the preferment dough calculating tool will produce the quantities of the ingredients to use based on your inputs to the tool. As noted above, you will have to handle the honey separately, as I did above, since the tool doesn't work with honey.

Keep up the good work JerryMac. Its obvious everyone loves the recipe I begged you to post...Hope your doing well!!!

I believe that Bistro may have meant to post in JerryMac's original thread on his dough recipe, which can be found at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,5851.0.html. I made a version of JerryMac's recipe that was slightly different than his and based on baker's percents so that the pizza can be made at any size. Either way, JerryMac has a good recipe.

Tom Lehmann recently briefly described a method at the PMQ Think Tank forum at http://thinktank.pmq.com/viewtopic.php?p=38304#38304 for adapting a direct-method dough recipe to a “sponge” preferment format. I am certain that the suggestion to use this method was intended to be with respect to a low yeast dough recipe, but I wondered whether it would work for a dough formulation with a lot more yeast, such as the one originally given by JerryMac at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,5851.0.html. As those who have tried JerryMac’s dough recipe know, Jerry Mac’s dough is made and used the same day. By contrast, Tom’s method would permit a period of cold fermentation of up to three days. It was that feature that intrigued me, especially in the context of using a lot of yeast (about 1.4% IDY) rather than the minuscule amounts usually used in the sponge preferment method.

As noted above, the flour I used was the King Arthur bread flour. It was sifted in preparation for using. Because of the anticipated wetness of the dough and its natural propensity to stick to things, I used a bowl residue compensation of 2%.

To prepare the sponge in line with Tom Lehmann’s instructions, I used 60% of the formula flour, one-half of the weight of the formula flour as water, and all of the yeast. The values of the sponge ingredients can be specified as follows:

To prepare the sponge, I combined the flour, water and IDY in the mixer bowl of my standard KitchenAid stand mixer, using the stir speed and the flat beater attachment. The water was at a temperature of 54 degrees F. The sponge ingredients were mixed for about 3 minutes. The resultant sponge had a hydration of 83.33% and it had a finished temperature of 71 degrees F. The sponge was allowed to ferment, covered by a sheet of plastic wrap, at a room temperature of about 81 degrees F, until the sponge peaked and then started to collapse (the break point). Normally, the peak and break points take several hours to occur but with the high amount of yeast, it took only three hours. The first photo below shows the sponge shortly after the break point occurred.

Once the break point was reached, I used the sponge with the remaining formula ingredients as part of the final mix. The final mix can be recited as follows:

Using the remaining formula water at about 47 degrees F (directly out of the refrigerator), all of the ingredients for the final mix were combined in the stand mixer at stir speed, using the flat beater attachment, until the dough mass gathered around the flat beater, about 2 minutes. I then replaced the flat beater attachment with the C-hook and kneaded at speed 2 for about 4 minutes. The finished dough weight was 551 g. (19.44 oz.), and the finished dough temperature was 77 degrees F. The dough was quite wet and pretty much without form but, using a bench knife and a lightly floured work surface, I formed the dough mass into a round ball. The dough was then put into a lightly oiled 1 ¾-qt. Pyrex glass bowl, covered with its plastic cover (with a small hole in the center for the release of gases), and put into the refrigerator. The dough remained in the refrigerator for just shy of two days. During its stay in the refrigerator, the dough rose quickly and even bumped up against the inside of the cover of the bowl (but did not push it off). When I removed the dough from the bowl, it was very soft, wet and gassy. So, to more fully develop the gluten structure, I re-kneaded the dough and let it warm up at room temperature for 2 hours. The second photo below shows the dough ball just after re-kneading.

To prepare the pizza, I shaped and stretched the dough to 16” and placed the skin onto a 16” pizza screen. Because of the high hydration of the dough, around 68%, I lightly sprayed the pizza screen in advance with a canola oil spray to minimize the likelihood of the skin sticking to the screen. As with my previous efforts with JerryMac’s dough recipe, the skin was highly extensible. However, I had no problems in getting the skin out to 16” and onto the pizza screen. Had I chosen to use a peel along with a stone capable of handling a 16” pizza, it is possible that I would have encountered sticking problems. Using parchment paper or member Jackitup’s skin management method depicted at http://s186.photobucket.com/albums/x41/Jackitup1/?=view&current=95f76c71.pbw95f76c71.pbw would have been possible workable alternatives. I used the 16” screen because my stone cannot itself accommodate a pizza size greater than 14”.

The skin was dressed to make a buffalo chicken pizza, which is one of my favorites. To do this, I first coated the stretched out skin with a layer of buttermilk Ranch dressing (Ken’s brand). I then added the following items in sequence: drizzles of Frank’s Red Hot Buffalo Wing Sauce; crumbled blue cheese; diced yellow onion (red onion is also a good choice); pieces of chicken that I had grilled in a grill pan and coated with more of the Frank’s Wing Sauce; shredded mozzarella cheese (low-moisture, part-skim); pieces of partially-cooked bacon; and more drizzles of the Frank’s Wing Sauce. I used about half the amount of mozzarella cheese that I would normally use on a 16” pizza.

The pizza was baked, on the screen, on the top-most oven rack position of my oven, at a temperature of about 525 degrees F, until the rim of the pizza expanded and started to turn light brown, about 4 minutes. I then shifted the pizza off of the screen (which was then removed from the oven) onto my pizza stone to get increased bottom crust browning, about another 3 minutes. The stone had been placed on the lowest oven rack position and preheated for about an hour at the above temperature. After the bottom of the crust of the pizza reached the desired color, I moved the pizza back to the top-most oven rack to get increased top crust browning, about 2 more minutes (I will have more to say about the color issue below).

The photos in the next post show the finished pizza. The pizza was excellent. It had a large rim that was open and airy and with several large bubbles (see the cross sectional view in the slice photo in the next post) and with a crunchy outer veneer. The rest of the crust was chewy and a bit crispy. The crust flavors were better than with a dough of similar age but prepared using the direct method.

The crust coloration was good but it took longer than usual to get the color to the desired level. I believe that the dough did not have the usual amount of residual sugar to contribute to normal crust coloration. I somewhat expected this because of the large amount of the sponge (about 70% of the total dough weight) and the large amount of yeast (almost 1.4%) that ends up using most of the sugars released by enzyme performance, leaving little fermentiscible sugar in the remaining flour. Anticipating this possibility, I had thought to add about 0.5-1% diastatic malt, by weight of total formula flour, to the dough as part of the final mix to get increased extraction of sugar. However, because of the use of about 4.7% honey, I thought that there might already be ample residual sugar to contribute to the final color of the crust. That turned out not to be quite the case, so if I were to use the sponge method again with JerryMac’s recipe, I personally would add some diastatic malt to see if the results are improved. For those interested in diastatic malt, it is sold by Bob's Red Mill (http://www.bobsredmill.com/product.php?productid=3529&cat=0&page=1).

I believe that perhaps the most valuable lesson to come out of my recent effort is that the sponge preferment method can be used with JerryMac’s recipe to extend the fermentation period beyond a single day, or part of a day, to at least two days. As made clear above, there is no need to change the ingredients or their quantities in any way. Only the preparation method would be changed.

Could you verify the weight of flour in the preferment - the flour is showing as the same as the amount of the original recipe instead of the 60% mentioned in the sponge preparation. Maybe I'm misreading your post?

This looks like one I'd like to try so I want to get it right (since I've had good luck with the JerryMac recipe.

I wish I could tell you that I put in the incorrect amount just to see who was paying attention. But it was simply an error, which I went back and corrected. Thank you for the keen eye. I hope you will let us know how you like the results if you decide to try the recipe.

I was hesitant to modify JerryMac's recipe but ordinarily I would use a more classic sponge preferment with a small amount of the total yeast and a considerably longer preferment period. The bulk of the yeast would be reserved for the final mix. Maybe one of these days I will try the more classic sponge method with JerryMac's recipe. But for the first try, I wanted to see if I could make the sponge method work without changing JerryMac's recipe too much.

DKM and Peter.... fantastic looking pizzas!! I need to either figure out how to take better pics of my pies or get a better camera. Looks like you could eat yours right off the screen. Yum. I'm gonna give this recipe a try next week when I get out of the hospital and recoup. Till then, still have 3 more dough balls to use up in next couple days. Again, looks great and can't wait to try it.

Joe

Logged

I believe we could have world peace if someone could make enough Pizza and supply enough Beer for Everyone!

I hope you will let us know how you like the results if you decide to try the recipe.

Peter

Will do - it's "in plan" for next week.

I'm always in awe of the fantastic oven spring you get on the rims of your pizzas and the flavor from the standard JerryMac recipe has been the best I've had so far.

I usually do a 14" pizza on the stone in my Big Green Egg although I do have a large rectangular stone that lives in my regular oven as well. I prefer the Egg because the home Monogram ZET2 oven has a hidden lower element, and doesn't seem to do as good a job on pizzas as my previous home's exposed-element Dacor oven. Plus it's fun to cook pizza outside.

Once our DFW area weather (we're in Denton) gets cold enough, though, I might try your method of changing placement throughout the cook in the regular oven to see if I can improve its pizza performance. That would also let me do a full 16" pie since that's the size of screens I have.

With JerryMac's recipe, it is largely the combination of high hydration and a lot of yeast that is responsible for the oven spring. The high extensibility of the dough will also let you make a bigger rim if you want. Actually, the original pizza I wrote about in this thread had an even greater oven spring than the recent one. Technically, a NY style pizza does not have a large rim. I found that with JerryMac's recipe it is hard to get a small rim.

The crust of the most recent pizza was like a baguette, which shouldn't be surprising since sponge preferments are commonly used to make baguette dough. The crust of the original pizza was softer.

If you want to make a 14" pizza for your BGE, it is easy enough to change the dough formulation I posted for the 16" size, although it will be necessary to alter the quantities of ingredients to go into the sponge and into the final mix. If you need help with this, let me know.

If you want to make a 14" pizza for your BGE, it is easy enough to change the dough formulation I posted for the 16" size, although it will be necessary to alter the quantities of ingredients to go into the sponge and into the final mix. If you need help with this, let me know.

Peter

Thanks for the offer, Pete. I modify recipes between the 16" screen, 14" BGE, and 12" RV pizza pan all the time (and I'm an engineer), so I'm pretty good with Pie R Squared

I hope you will let us know how you like the results if you decide to try the recipe.

Peter

This week (yesterday) I finally got around to trying Pete's cold rise version of the Jerry Mac recipe (last week was a Chicago-style deep dish). I used KABF and made a 14" pizza. 3 hours on the sponge preferment, a little over 48 hours in the fridge.

I also found that it benefited from being kneaded briefly when finally taken out of the fridge to assist in shaping after a 2 hour warm up.

After the 2 hours, I shaped it on my Silicone Zone pizza mat, I let it rest 20 minutes so that the rim wouldn't pull back too much. I dressed the dough lightly with a mixture of minced garlic (3 cloves) and 1 Tablespoon of olive oil that was simmered until the garlic just started to color. I do the oil ahead and let it cool so I can smear it on the dough with my fingers. I then seasoned with a little fresh-ground black pepper and a sprinkling of kosher salt. Sauce was Mario Batali's Basic Tomato Sauce. Toppings were Central Market fresh mozzarella, fresh basil, sliced pepperoni, sliced pepperocini, and a dusting of parmeggiano reggiano (our standard pizza).

Since it was cool and windy here, this was done in the oven rather than the Big Green Egg, at 500 F. My pizza stone was on the middle rack. I used "bake" rather than "convection", since I find that works best in my Monogram oven. This was the first time I've done pizza on the middle rack rather than the bottom one; I'd last baked some artisan bread and had forgotten to move the stone before preheating. I started with the pizza on the silicone mat, but pulled the mat out from under the pizza after a few minutes so there could be direct contact with the stone.

Fabulous flavor, browning, and crispness! Oh, and great oven spring - my best rim yet! This one is a keeper and will be made as long as I remember "hey, it's Wednesday - time to make the dough" for our weekly Friday pizza. And I will definitely leave the stone in the middle rack position.

Oh, and after I pulled the pizza and shut off the oven, I put a loaf of proofed artisan bread (deli rye from "Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day") on the preheated stone and a pan of boiling water on the top rack. Shut the door and set the timer for 40 minutes and now we have a fabulous loaf of "residual heat, low carbon footprint" artisan bread for the weekend's enjoyment.